Tuesday, March 12, 2013

1979 Fuji Royale (September 2012)

While visiting my favorite place for project bikes, Bike Works, on a Wednesday I spotted a Fuji frame-set that gave me pause. I thought to myself "stop buying frame-sets! its easier to do complete bikes" and so I passed it by. I really liked the look of it, however, especially the world championship-like banding on the down tube and I had been hankering to work on a Fuji for a while so on Thursday I was back to buy it.

My frame-set came with a front derailleur, stem, seat post, brakes, bottom bracket, and a crappy headset. I bought a new Tange headset and got most of the other parts out of the parts bin. Unfortunately I did not get a frame-set only picture. Have I mentioned that I really like head badges? The Fuji's head badge is a classic.

I ran into issues with the rear derailleur and the crank-set I had out the parts bin so I put a new Shimano TZ-50 RD on the frame (cheap but effective) and lucked into a Fuji panto-graphed crank-set at Recycled Cycles to fix the crank issue. I even found a (modern) Fuji branded saddle for this build. The crank cleaned up nicely with the application of some Mother's Aluminum polish, a great tip from my friend Hugh -Mothers really does the trick.

When I brought this bike home I had a vision of doing some orange accents to tie into the orange band from the world championship looking rainbow stripes and the orange lug lining on the frame. I think the orange bar tape and toe straps add some color to an otherwise understated silver frame.

All in all I am happy with how it turned out and it was snapped up off Craigslist fairly quickly, so I guess the orange accents worked.

On a side note a new job, hurray for income!, has kept me away from regular posting on the blog but I am hoping to finish up both the Raleigh curbside find project and the Fiorelli project soon.

9 comments:

Wow! I really like the orange piping that goes around the lugs. How classy is That! I can see why this was snapped up. Cool ride for somebody!

By the way....welcome back (I guess) to the worka-day world. Maybe we can all return in our next life and improve to a superior lifeform that is Hugh. Work on bikes and then ride said bikes until you tire of them and sell them!As always, nice work RyanJim

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for the compliment. I too am a sucker for good lug lining and on the Fuji the orange really looks sharp against the silver paint job. Perhaps someday I can retire from the 9 to 5 world and get by restoring old bikes, guess I better work on finding me a "sugar momma" to make that happen....LOL

If I can be a "Broke down old bum" who gets to ride my bike alot, lives someplace with 300 days of sun and no days under 40 degrees, has a valuable skillset like say Master Carpenter and if I can write excellent stories like my Friend the TPC then I might just sign up for the BDOB club ;-) Can I live in a AirStream?

I am rebuilding a vintage Raleigh Grand Prix with 27 X 1-1/4 Rims. Do you think the Club Roost Cross Terra Tire: 27" x 1-3/8" Steel Bead Black will work with the rims? I don't think clearance would be a problem.